Chapter 24: Shotgun Wedding

The carriage ride was aggressively silent.

Valeria sat across from me, arms folded, staring with an intensity that could probably drill holes through steel. The kind of stare that made every nerve in my body scream danger. We’d been traveling for three hours and she hadn’t blinked once. I was keeping track.

The wooden seat beneath me felt harder with each passing mile, and the bumpy road wasn’t helping my growing sense of existential dread.

I tried focusing on the landscape rolling past the window. Anything to avoid making eye contact.

“This is nice.”

My head snapped toward her so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.

“What?”

She shifted slightly, uncrossing and recrossing her arms. A faint smile played at the corners of her mouth, the kind that would look sweet on anyone else but on Valeria just screamed premeditated murder.

“Being alone together. Away from the others.”

Oh no. Oh no no no.

“This is a mission, Valeria. A potentially catastrophic one. Not a vacation.”

Her smile widened.

“I know. But we’re still alone. No interruptions. No distractions.”

The way she said “distractions” made it sound like she was talking about obstacles she could physically remove. Permanently.

I was living in a horror movie. Like, legitimately. I was that idiot protagonist who ignored every single red flag and walked straight into the creepy cabin in the woods. Except the cabin was this carriage and the monster was sitting across from me looking increasingly pleased with the situation.

The rational part of my brain kept screaming at me to jump out while we were still moving.

“We should probably discuss the mission parameters.”

Valeria’s expression didn’t change.

“What’s there to discuss? We reach the Northern Wastelands, you point at the threat, I eliminate it.”

She made it sound so simple. Like we were going grocery shopping instead of stopping a magical doomsday device.

“Seraphina seemed genuinely worried. That’s not normal.”

“She’s always dramatic.”

Fair point, but this felt different. The grave expression, the vague explanations, the way Beatrice had insisted only Valeria could protect me. Something bigger was happening here and everyone knew it except me.

The carriage hit a particularly nasty bump, throwing me slightly forward. Valeria’s hand shot out, steadying me with a grip on my forearm that was definitely stronger than necessary.

“Careful.”

Her fingers lingered for three full seconds before releasing me.

Yeah. Horror movie protagonist. That was me.

We traveled in silence for another hour before the carriage lurched to an abrupt stop. The driver’s panicked voice filtered through from outside, high-pitched and shaking.

“Bandits! Road’s blocked!”

I moved to the window, peering through the gap in the curtain. Sure enough, a group of about eight people stood across the path, weapons drawn. Standard highway robbery setup, probably happened a dozen times a day on these routes.

Valeria was already standing, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

“Stay behind me.”

She kicked the carriage door open before I could suggest maybe talking our way out of this.

I followed her out, hands raised in what I hoped was a non-threatening gesture.

The bandits looked rough but not particularly dangerous. Desperate more than evil. The kind of people driven to robbery by circumstances rather than sadism.

“Look, we don’t want trouble.”

The leader, a grizzled man with a scar across his jaw, laughed.

“Then hand over your valuables and no one gets hurt.”

I opened my mouth to negotiate. Maybe offer them some money to let us pass peacefully. Standard de-escalation tactics.

Then I noticed one of the bandits staring at me. A woman with short dark hair, her eyes tracking me with obvious interest. Just looking. Nothing threatening about it.

Valeria noticed too.

The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

“Filthy eyes shouldn’t look at what belongs to me.”

Everything happened in the span of three heartbeats.

Valeria moved like liquid death, closing the distance between her and the female bandit in less than a second. Her sword sang as it left its sheath, and then there was just blood. Lots of blood.

The woman didn’t even have time to scream.

The other bandits barely had time to process what happened before Valeria was among them. Her blade moved in precise, brutal arcs, each strike calculated for maximum lethality. No wasted movement. No hesitation.

I just stood there, probably looking bored or cool or whatever expression my face defaulted to when my brain completely shut down from shock.

This wasn’t a fight. This was an execution.

One bandit tried to run. Valeria’s throwing knife caught him in the spine before he made it five steps.

Another attempted to surrender, dropping his weapon and falling to his knees.

Valeria didn’t slow down.

Within thirty seconds, seven bodies littered the ground. The leader was still alive, backed against a tree, trembling so violently his sword clattered from his grip.

Valeria stalked toward him, blade dripping crimson.

“Wait.”

My voice came out steadier than I felt. Probably shock doing me a favor.

She paused, glancing back at me with an expression that was almost hopeful. Like she was waiting for praise.

“Let him go.”

The bandit leader looked at me like I’d just offered him salvation.

Valeria’s jaw tightened, clearly unhappy with this development. But after a long moment, she lowered her sword.

“You heard him. Run.”

The man scrambled to his feet and bolted into the forest without looking back.

Valeria turned to face me fully, and there was something unsettling in her eyes. Adoration mixed with possessiveness, like I’d just confirmed everything she believed about me.

“Your mercy is one of the many reasons you’re worthy of devotion.”

That wasn’t mercy. That was me being horrified by the casual massacre I’d just witnessed. But explaining that seemed like a bad idea when she was still holding a blood-covered sword.

“We should keep moving.”

She nodded, cleaning her blade with practiced efficiency before sheathing it.

The driver was too terrified to do anything but nod frantically when we climbed back into the carriage. We started moving again within minutes, leaving the carnage behind like it was nothing.

Valeria settled back into her seat, looking more relaxed than she had all day.

“That felt good.”

I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. My brain was still processing what I’d just seen.

She’d killed seven people in under a minute. Without breaking a sweat. And the only reason she’d spared the eighth was because I asked. Not because of morality or law or basic human decency.

Because I asked.

That should have felt empowering. Instead it just made me nauseous.

The sun was setting by the time we made camp. The driver insisted on staying with the carriage, which left Valeria and me alone in a small clearing surrounded by dark trees.

Horror movie protagonist. Definitely.

She set up our camp with military precision. Two bedrolls near the fire, positioned close enough that I could probably reach out and touch her if I wanted to. Which I very much did not want to.

“You should sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

I nodded, too exhausted to argue. The day’s events had drained every ounce of mental energy I possessed.

I lay down on my bedroll, pulling Beatrice’s enchanted coat over myself like a blanket. The tracking spell woven into the fabric felt oddly comforting. At least someone would know where to find my body.

I closed my eyes, willing sleep to come quickly.

It didn’t.

Because I could feel her staring at me.

I cracked one eye open. Valeria sat across the fire, sword laid across her lap, sharpening it with slow, deliberate strokes. Her gaze was locked on me with that same unsettling intensity from the carriage.

The rhythmic scrape of whetstone against steel filled the night air.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

She hadn’t looked away once.

I closed my eye again, pretending I hadn’t noticed. Maybe if I faked sleep convincingly enough, she’d eventually stop.

Five minutes passed. The scraping continued.

Ten minutes. Still staring.

Fifteen minutes. I could feel her eyes boring into me like physical weight.

This was my life now. Running a guild full of women who saw me as their personal property. Going on nightmare missions where the biggest threat wasn’t the doomsday device but my own bodyguard’s obsessive devotion.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.

Valeria’s hand tightened on her sword hilt.

I kept my breathing steady, maintaining the illusion of sleep, and prayed we’d reach the Northern Wastelands soon.

Because if this was just day one of our journey, I wasn’t going to survive day two.

The scraping sound continued into the night, steady and rhythmic, and I lay there in the darkness wondering if the Titan’s Heart executing Order 67 would really be worse than this.